I'm trying to save our planet

Yes - a lot of these things. I grow some veg on the patio, buy other veg at local farm shop, use reusable shopping bags, buy stuff with less packaging, try to buy less, or secondhand. But the biggest thing I do is probably switching to a vegan diet a year ago. It really isn't hard to do, it isn't weird, it isn't just salad and veg! There is some amazing vegan food! Can be unhealthy or healthy - last night made some pizza with vegan cheese, tonight curry, cereal and oat milk for breakfast, vegan cheese sandwich for lunch. Bacon crisps occasionally (yes, these are vegan!!), and other goodies! Good for the environment but even better if you are an animal ?

All good ideas, particularly the wipes which are a scourge. I try and buy less stuff, particularly clothing and wash it less frequently, and it doesn't smell ?.

Laundry has quite a high carbon footprint, releases toxic chemicals into the water system, and uses gallons of water. The fashion industry has a huge carbon footprint.

Kitchen wipes and face wipes are unnecessary. Kitchen cloths last for years or can be made out of old linen or shirts. Face flannels or muslin or cotton cloths can also be used on the face.

Baby bottom wipes have their uses, especially when travelling and in nursery situations, but soft loo roll and/or cotton wool work too. 100% cotton wool can be composted, although cotton is a water-thirsty crop. For wiping children's hands and faces, I'd always prefer a flannel/cloth and water to wipes.

Missadventure thank you for the link to info about wipes. Very informative!

Completely confused all at work by buying 5 litre container of washing up liquid, instead of the usual bottles (Reduce plastic waste)

Had to put a notice on the fridge explaining, they all thought I'd lost the plot and forgotten to order any. Idiots!

I buy lots of stuff in bulk, because its much cheaper, mainly.
I have huge cupboards here, my mum used to call one of them my 'shop'.

Wipes are awful, and I tend not to use them. For my face, a facecloth and gentle soap, or cotton pads. I just read up on cotton pads, and will switch up to organic if I can find them.

We recycle most of our garbage. Our small city does not pick it up, so we have to do our own separating and bring it out to the recycle depot ourselves.

Natural gas is used to heat our house, which is better than other fossil fuels. Our electric is generated by hydro. Solar power is not viable in our area, but I would love to add a wind turbine if I could.

We commute less than 4 km to and from work so do not use too much fuel. Next summer I may look at getting an electric bike to use for the commute, but will stick with my car for now.

It breaks my heart to see what the planet has become, and whatever little bit we can do will help. The worst polluters in the world are China and India, where most of the manufacturing in the world happens. So we try to consume and purchase less, and recycle what we can.

If it were legal to travel by horse I would-

Am following this thread with interest but I have nothing to add to all the stuff you are all doing.

I like Bathsheba’s idea of the net curtain grocery bags. DH does take the single use bags back to refill with more veg/fruit so it’s not single use but those net bags would be even better provided shops don’t object to them.

(I did read that fruit such as apples are delivered to the stores in packaging to stop damage and then taken out so we think we’re doing good for the planet by buying loose.)

Oh dear, one very embarrassed nana here, I honestly thought that biodegradable wipes, although put in the general waste, would degrade in the landfill. Stupid me, I won’t buy them again . I’d like to know where I can buy shampoo in bars.

Nanasam
Have you given any thought to the packaging on your biodegradable (not!!!) wipes. None of it is.
Souce: Friends of the earth.

If your serious about trying to save our planet you have a way to go yet.

Its good to learn from each other though.

Companies are sneaky too, letting us think their products are environmentally friendly.

They should face a big fine, I think.

Nfk I've been using my mesh produce bags for some time now and the shops have no objections. They are see-through, so they know what's in them at the till.

Our local Sainsbury's tried doing away with plastic bags for vegetables, and using paper bags. Unfortunately, they say that the demand was so high, they ran out of supplies and then could only offer little plastic net bags at 30p each, which were made from plastic bottles. I felt sorry for the assistant, as a group of us complained that any plastic was unwelcome, I hope they have got their act together this week when I go. We have decided to give up air travel, only using railways if we want to go abroad. A friend of ours takes at least 14 holidays a year, usually cruising to some exotic spot on the globe, I only hope my small attempts at saving the planet make up for her waste!

Dud you know that Pizza Express is wholly owned by Chinese company Hony?
There's no getting over the fact that China has a fist (never mind a finger) in every pie.

Oops! dud did.

Nanasam I've been using solid shampoo & conditioner for two years now and wouldn't return to liquid versions. You can get them at Lush uk.lush.com/products/shampoo/new or there are other companies mentioned here. www.standard.co.uk/shopping/esbest/beauty/hair/best-shampoo-bars-uk-a4052631.html

Today I rang my local council to ask where I could recycle the part full/ empty aerosol cans of hair mousse, deodorant, air freshener that I no longer want to use.
Classed as hazardous waste, it can't be put in black bins.
You have to take it to the tip and ask for the haz skip, I was told.
As it's quite a walk from the nearest bus stop and an hourly bus service, it's ridiculous that they don't have a secure letterbox type bin in each town or village which can be emptied monthly by the council.
I could drive there with 5 aerosol cans but it defeats the object of reducing carbon et ....

On another note. I have, over the years, saved about a dozen plastic fresh soup containers which I washed and now use as storage, the lids being airtight.
Nuts, flour, dried fruit, croutons, porridge oats, icing sugar etc. As you can see what's inside there's no need for labels and they're stackable and non-spill.

I'm not sure endlessly buying things helps

Aw but the poor little kiddiwinks must have Halloween costumes, plastic buckets to collects sweets, party bags, a mountain of toys at Christmas and of course crackers are vital.

The guardian has a series of articles and opinion pieces pointing out that for decades the world's major pollutors have influenced policy and provided misinformation to cover up their tracks. We now feel that we are responsible for the destruction of our planet but we have been living in a fools paradise created by the big players for decades. At last we are waking up.

There were no wipes when our 4 DC were babies. We used a flannel for bottoms. We also used terry nappies.
I didn't know I was helping the planet then although as soon as the disposables started to come in, and at first they were rather horrid rolls of padding, questions were asked about what would happen to them. once used and the very fact that they were just used once seemed extremely wasteful.
We talked about all the trees which were cut down to make the paper for the nappies. It wasn't plastic back then just too much paper.
We also encouraged our children to use the potty from about 18 months. Now some DC are still in nappies aged 3 or 4.
Each generation seems to need to find its own way.

Unfortunately, not enough is recycled and the bulk of it thats collected is shipped to other countries where some of it gets processed and manufactured into more junk that ends up in in landfills or the ocean- Its more like a vicious cycle than anything else-

Small things of us can have a huge impact in the future.

rosecarmel, where do you live?
There are people on horses all over the place where I live.
It would be perfectly possible to ride to our nearest town and tie up outside Tesco’s!

Why all the wipes? You don't need half of those! A set of microfibre cloths can do the job of most of them - many hospitals use them for cleaning - even with cold water - they grab dirt and germs and can then be washed easily and re used time and time again rather than go to landfill.
Hoping that your"botty wipes" are not flushed down the loo! How did we cope before they arrived?
I recycle as much as I can - luckily our local council will take a lot of items from yoghurt pots to even trigger sprays. I don't drive so have to use public transport. However, my son has to drive as we live in a village and he works in a village that only has 3 buses a day to the nearest town.
I have been using my own shopping bags for years - hate the plastic carriers most shops have as if you have more than one, they cut into your hand.
It's a great shame that more not wasn't taken of what ecologists were saying 30 or so years ago. If we had, things may well have been a lot different.